Updated on 2022/11/28

写真a

 
NAKAMURA, Chie
 
Scopus Paper Info  
Paper Count: 0  Citation Count: 0  h-index: 4

Citation count denotes the number of citations in papers published for a particular year.

Affiliation
Faculty of Science and Engineering, Global Center for Science and Engineering
Job title
Associate Professor(without tenure)
Homepage URL
https://sites.google.com/site/carumakan/home
Profile

My research investigates how language is represented and used in the mind. I am interested in questions such as how language users cope with indeterminacies in language and efficiently generate rich linguistic meaning during online comprehension, and how language is processed differently between native speakers and second language learners beyond the differences in the level of general language proficiency. In my research, I use a variety of eye-tracking experimental methods such as eye-tracking in text reading, the visual world eye-tracking paradigm, pupillary dilations (pupillometry), as well as neuropsychological techniques.

Research Institute

  • 2020
    -
    2022

    理工学術院総合研究所   兼任研究員

Education

  • 2010.04
    -
    2013.03

    RIKEN   Brain Science Institute   Laboratory for Language Development  

    Student trainee

  • 2010.04
    -
    2013.03

    Keio University   Graduate School of Science and Technology   School of Science for Open and Environmental Systems  

  • 2008.04
    -
    2010.03

    Keio University   Graduate School of Media and Governance   Cognition, Sense-Making and Biophysical Skills Major  

  • 2004.04
    -
    2008.03

    Keio University   Faculty of Environment and Information Studies  

Degree

  • 2013.03   Keio University   Ph.D.

Research Experience

  • 2019.04
    -
    Now

    Waseda University   Faculty of Science and Engineering   Associate Professor (without tenure)

  • 2017
    -
    2019.03

    University of California, Los Angeles   Department of Linguistics   Visiting Scholar

  • 2016.04
    -
    2019.03

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology   Department of Linguistics   JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship for Research Abroad

  • 2014.12
    -
    2016.03

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology   Department of Linguistics   Postdoctoral Researcher

  • 2013.04
    -
    2016.03

    The University of Tokyo   Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Language and Information Sciences   JSPS Postdoctoral researcher

  • 2010.04
    -
    2013.03

    Keio University   Graduate School of Science and Technology   JSPS Research fellowship for young scientists (DC1)

  • 2010.04
    -
    2013.03

    RIKEN   Brain Science Institute   Student Trainee

▼display all

 

Research Areas

  • Linguistics   Psycholinguistics Sentence processing Second language acquisition

Research Interests

  • Eye tracking

  • Second language acquisition

  • Sentence processing

  • Psycholinguistics

Papers

  • L2 Learners Do Not Ignore Verb’s Subcategorization Information in Real-Time Syntactic Processing

    Chie Nakamura, Manabu Arai, Yuki Hirose, Suzanne Flynn

    Frontiers in Psychology   12  2022.01  [Refereed]

    Authorship：Lead author

    　View Summary

    This study addressed the question of whether L2 learners are able to utilize verb’s argument structure information in online structural analysis. Previous L2 research has shown that L2 learners have difficulty in using verb’s intransitive information to guide online syntactic processing. This is true even though L2 learners have grammatical knowledge that is correct and similar to that of native speakers. In the present study, we contrasted three hypotheses, the initial inaccessibility account, the intransitivity overriding account, and the fuzzy subcategorization frame account, to investigate whether L2 learner’s knowledge of intransitive verbs is in fact ignored in L2 online structural analysis. The initial inaccessibility account and the fuzzy subcategorization frame account predicted that L2 learners cannot access intransitivity information in building syntactic structures in any situation. The intransitivity overriding account predicted that intransitivity information is accessed in L2 parsing, but this process is overridden by the strong transitivity preference when a verb is followed by a noun phrase. Importantly, the intransitivity overriding account specifically predicted that L2 learners would be able to use intransitive information in online syntactic processing when a noun phrase does not appear immediately following a verb. We tested the three accounts in an eye-tracking reading experiment using filler-gap dependency structures. We manipulated verb’s transitivity information and lexically based plausibility information and tested English native speakers as a control L1 group (<italic>N</italic> = 29) and Japanese-English L2 participants (<italic>N</italic> = 32). The results showed that L2 learners as well as native speakers processed sentences differently depending on the subcategorization information of the verb, and adopted transitive analysis only when the verb was optionally transitive, providing support for the intransitivity overriding. The results further demonstrated that L2 learners had strong expectations for the transitive structure, which is consistent with the view proposed by the hyper-active gap-filling hypothesis. In addition, the results showed that the semantic mismatch in the incorrect transitive analysis facilitated native speaker’s processing but caused difficulty for L2 learners. Together, the current study provides evidence that L2 learners use intransitive information of the verbs to guide their structural analysis when there are no overriding constraints.

    DOI

    Scopus

  • Integrating prosody in anticipatory language processing: How listeners adapt to unconventional prosodic cues

    Nakamura, C, Harris, J, Jun, S-A

    Language, Cognition and Neuroscience    2021  [Refereed]

    Authorship：Lead author

  • Difference between L1 and L2 language processing in the use of subcategorization information: Evidence from syntactic priming

    Chie Nakamura, Manabu Arai, Yasunari Harada

    Gengokenkyu   155   1 - 33  2019  [Refereed]

    Authorship：Lead author

    DOI

  • An Extra Cue Is Beneficial for Native Speakers but Can Be Disruptive for Second Language Learners: Integration of Prosody and Visual Context in Syntactic Ambiguity Resolution.

    Nakamura C, Arai M, Hirose Y, Flynn S

    Frontiers in psychology   10   2835 - 2835  2019.01  [Refereed]  [International journal]

    Authorship：Lead author

    　View Summary

    © Copyright © 2020 Nakamura, Arai, Hirose and Flynn. It has long been debated whether non-native speakers can process sentences in the same way as native speakers do or they suffer from certain qualitative deficit in their ability of language comprehension. The current study examined the influence of prosodic and visual information in processing sentences with a temporarily ambiguous prepositional phrase (“Put the cake on the plate in the basket”) with native English speakers and Japanese learners of English. Specifically, we investigated (1) whether native speakers assign different pragmatic functions to the same prosodic cues used in different contexts and (2) whether L2 learners can reach the correct analysis by integrating prosodic cues with syntax with reference to the visually presented contextual information. The results from native speakers showed that contrastive accents helped to resolve the referential ambiguity when a contrastive pair was present in visual scenes. However, without a contrastive pair in the visual scene, native speakers were slower to reach the correct analysis with the contrastive accent, which supports the view that the pragmatic function of intonation categories are highly context dependent. The results from L2 learners showed that visually presented context alone helped L2 learners to reach the correct analysis. However, L2 learners were unable to assign contrastive meaning to the prosodic cues when there were two potential referents in the visual scene. The results suggest that L2 learners are not capable of integrating multiple sources of information in an interactive manner during real-time language comprehension.

    DOI PubMed

    Scopus

    5
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • It's Harder to Break a Relationship When you Commit Long.

    Arai M, Nakamura C

    PloS one   11 ( 6 ) e0156482  2016.06  [Refereed]  [International journal]

    　View Summary

    © 2016 Arai, Nakamura. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Past research has produced evidence that parsing commitments strengthen over the processing of additional linguistic elements that are consistent with the commitments and undoing strong commitments takes more time than undoing weak commitments. It remains unclear, however, whether this so-called digging-in effect is exclusively due to the length of an ambiguous region or at least partly to the extra cost of processing these additional phrases. The current study addressed this issue by testing Japanese relative clause structure, where lexical content and sentence meaning were controlled for. The results showed evidence for a digging-in effect reflecting the strengthened commitment to an incorrect analysis caused by the processing of additional adjuncts. Our study provides strong support for the dynamical, self-organizing models of sentence processing but poses a problem for other models including serial two-stage models as well as frequency-based probabilistic models such as the surprisal theory.

    DOI PubMed

    Scopus

  • Persistence of Initial Misanalysis With No Referential Ambiguity.

    Nakamura C, Arai M

    Cognitive science   40 ( 4 ) 909 - 940  2015.07  [Refereed]  [International journal]

    　View Summary

    © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. Previous research reported that in processing structurally ambiguous sentences comprehenders often preserve an initial incorrect analysis even after adopting a correct analysis following structural disambiguation. One criticism is that the sentences tested in previous studies involved referential ambiguity and allowed comprehenders to make inferences about the initial interpretation using pragmatic information, suggesting the possibility that the initial analysis persisted due to comprehenders' pragmatic inference but not to their failure to perform complete reanalysis of the initial misanalysis. Our study investigated this by testing locally ambiguous relative clause sentences in Japanese, in which the initial misinterpretation contradicts the correct interpretation. Our study using a self-paced reading technique demonstrated evidence for the persistence of the initial analysis with this structure. The results from an eye-tracking study further suggested that the phenomenon directly reflected the amount of support given to the initial incorrect analysis prior to disambiguating information: The more supported the incorrect main clause analysis was, the more likely comprehenders were to preserve the analysis even after the analysis was falsified. Our results thus demonstrated that the preservation of the initial analysis occurs not due to referential ambiguities but to comprehenders' difficulty to fully revise the highly supported initial interpretation.

    DOI PubMed

    Scopus

    7
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • Predicting the unbeaten path through syntactic priming.

    Arai M, Nakamura C, Mazuka R

    Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition   41 ( 2 ) 482 - 500  2014.12  [Refereed]  [International journal]

    　View Summary

    © 2014 American Psychological Association. A number of previous studies showed that comprehenders make use of lexically based constraints such as subcategorization frequency in processing structurally ambiguous sentences. One piece of such evidence is lexically specific syntactic priming in comprehension; following the costly processing of a temporarily ambiguous sentence, comprehenders experience less processing difficulty with the same structure with the same verb in subsequent processing. In previous studies using a reading paradigm, however, the effect was observed at or following disambiguating information and it is not known whether a priming effect affects only the process of resolving structural ambiguity following disambiguating input or it also affects the process before ambiguity is resolved. Using a visual world paradigm, the current study addressed this issue with Japanese relative clause sentences. Our results demonstrated that after experiencing the relative clause structure, comprehenders were more likely to predict the usually dispreferred structure immediately upon hearing the same verb. No compatible effect, in contrast, was observed on hearing a different verb. Our results are consistent with the constraint-based lexicalist view, which assumes the parallel activation of possible structural analyses at the verb. Our study demonstrated that an experience of a dispreferred structure activates the structural information in a lexically specific manner, leading comprehenders to predict another instance of the same structure on encountering the same verb.

    DOI PubMed

    Scopus

    4
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • The Use of Verb Subcategorization Information in Processing Garden-Path Sentences: A Comparative Study on Native Speakers and Japanese EFL Learners

    Chie Nakamura, Ph.D.

    Studies in Language Sciences: Journal of the Japanese Society for Language Sciences   12   43 - 69  2013  [Refereed]

    Authorship：Lead author

    CiNii

  • Immediate use of prosody and context in predicting a syntactic structure.

    Nakamura C, Arai M, Mazuka R

    Cognition   125 ( 2 ) 317 - 323  2012.08  [Refereed]  [International journal]

    　View Summary

    Numerous studies have reported an effect of prosodic information on parsing but whether prosody can impact even the initial parsing decision is still not evident. In a visual world eye-tracking experiment, we investigated the influence of contrastive intonation and visual context on processing temporarily ambiguous relative clause sentences in Japanese. Our results showed that listeners used the prosodic cue to make a structural prediction before hearing disambiguating information. Importantly, the effect was limited to cases where the visual scene provided an appropriate context for the prosodic cue, thus eliminating the explanation that listeners have simply associated marked prosodic information with a less frequent structure. Furthermore, the influence of the prosodic information was also evident following disambiguating information, in a way that reflected the initial analysis. The current study demonstrates that prosody, when provided with an appropriate context, influences the initial syntactic analysis and also the subsequent cost at disambiguating information. The results also provide first evidence for pre-head structural prediction driven by prosodic and contextual information with a head-final construction. © 2012 Elsevier B.V..

    DOI PubMed

    Scopus

    30
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • CELER: A 365-Participant Corpus of Eye Movements in L1 and L2 English Reading

    Yevgeni Berzak, Chie Nakamura, Amelia Smith, Emily Weng, Boris Katz, Suzanne Flynn, Roger Levy

    Open Mind     1 - 10  2022.04  [Refereed]

    Authorship：Corresponding author

    　View Summary

    Abstract

    We present CELER (Corpus of Eye Movements in L1 and L2 English Reading), a broad coverage eye-tracking corpus for English. CELER comprises over 320,000 words, and eye-tracking data from 365 participants. Sixty-nine participants are L1 (first language) speakers, and 296 are L2 (second language) speakers from a wide range of English proficiency levels and five different native language backgrounds. As such, CELER has an order of magnitude more L2 participants than any currently available eye movements dataset with L2 readers. Each participant in CELER reads 156 newswire sentences from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), in a new experimental design where half of the sentences are shared across participants and half are unique to each participant. We provide analyses that compare L1 and L2 participants with respect to standard reading time measures, as well as the effects of frequency, surprisal, and word length on reading times. These analyses validate the corpus and demonstrate some of its strengths. We envision CELER to enable new types of research on language processing and acquisition, and to facilitate interactions between psycholinguistics and natural language processing (NLP).

    DOI

  • Learning to Anticipate Contrast with Prosody: A Visual World Study with L2 Learners

    Chie Nakamura, Jesse Harris, Sun-Ah Jun

    10th International Conference on Speech Prosody 2020    2020.05

    Authorship：Lead author

    DOI

  • L2 Adaptation to Unreliable Prosody during Structural Analysis: A Visual World Study

    Chie Nakamura, Jesse A. Harris, Sun-Ah Jun, Yuki Hirose

    Proceedings of the 43rd Boston University Conference on Language Development     454 - 468  2019  [Refereed]

    Authorship：Lead author

  • Listener's belief influences prosodic adaptation: Anticipatory use of contrastive accent during visual search

    Chie Nakamura, Jesse A. Harris, Sun-Ah Jun

    Proceedings of International Congress of Phonetic Sciences 2019     447 - 451  2019  [Refereed]

    Authorship：Lead author

  • Predicting native language from gaze

    Yevgeni Berzak, Chie Nakamura, Suzanne Flynn, Boris Katz

    ACL 2017 - 55th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Proceedings of the Conference (Long Papers)   1   541 - 551  2017  [Refereed]

    　View Summary

    © 2017 Association for Computational Linguistics. A fundamental question in language learning concerns the role of a speaker's first language in second language acquisition. We present a novel methodology for studying this question: analysis of eye-movement patterns in second language reading of free-form text. Using this methodology, we demonstrate for the first time that the native language of English learners can be predicted from their gaze fixations when reading English. We provide analysis of classifier uncertainty and learned features, which indicates that differences in English reading are likely to be rooted in linguistic divergences across native languages. The presented framework complements production studies and offers new ground for advancing research on multilingualism.

    DOI

    Scopus

    5
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • Prosody helps L1 speakers but confuses L2 learners: Influence of L+H* Pitch accent on referential ambiguity resolution

    Chie Nakamura, Manabu Arai, Yuki Hirose, Suzanne Flynn

    Proceedings of the International Conference on Speech Prosody   2016-January   577 - 581  2016  [Refereed]

    　View Summary

    © 2016, International Speech Communications Association. All rights reserved. Numerous studies have reported an effect of prosodic information on initial parsing decision. However, whether prosody functions in the same way in adult second language (L2) sentence processing is not known. In visual world eyetracking experiments, we investigated the influence of contrastive intonation and visual context on processing locally ambiguous sentences with L1 speakers (native English speakers) and L2 learners (Japanese adult learners of English). Our results showed that referential visual context alone helped both L1 speakers and L2 learners to correctly analyze the sentence structure. Interestingly, however, the results also revealed that contrastive intonation accompanied by referential visual context facilitated the correct interpretation with L1 speakers but misled L2 learners “down a garden path”. L2 learners did not interpret the contrastive intonation as a cue that highlights a contrastive set in the visual scene. Instead, they interpreted the contrastive intonation as a simple emphasis and adopted the incorrect syntactic analysis.

    DOI

    Scopus

    1
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • The effect of prosodic boundary in understanding English sentences by Japanese EFL learners

    Chie Nakamura

      11   47 - 58  2012  [Refereed]

    Authorship：Lead author

    DOI

  • Preservation of the Initial Analysis in Absence of Pragmatic Inference with Japanese Relative Clause Sentences.

    Chie Nakamura, Manabu Arai

    Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society(CogSci)    2012  [Refereed]

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Misc

  • Adaptation to Unreliable Prosody During Structural Analysis : A Visual World Study (思考と言語)

    NAKAMURA Chie, HARRIS Jesse, JUN Sun-Ah

    電子情報通信学会技術研究報告 = IEICE technical report : 信学技報   118 ( 163 ) 21 - 26  2018.07

    CiNii

  • Structural priming effects in Japanese sentence production : Stronger influence of voice than word order (思考と言語)

    DENG Ying, Nakamura Chie

    電子情報通信学会技術研究報告 = IEICE technical report : 信学技報   117 ( 149 ) 87 - 90  2017.07

    CiNii

  • Word Order Priming in Japanese : The Role of Verb Repetition (Thought and Language)

      115 ( 176 ) 61 - 64  2015.08

    CiNii

  • Predicting the verb in comprehending Japanese (Thought and Language)

      115 ( 176 ) 19 - 22  2015.08

    CiNii

  • Facilitatory and inhibitory effects of thematic fit in ambiguity resolution (Thought and Language)

    ARAI Manabu, NAKAMURA Chie, HIROSE Yuki

    Technical report of IEICE. Thought and language   114 ( 176 ) 107 - 112  2014.08

    　View Summary

    Many previous studies demonstrated an effect of lexically specific non-syntactic information such as thematic fit on the initial parsing preference. Using temporarily ambiguous relative clause sentences in Japanese, the current study examined how thematic-fit of a sentence-initial element influences the comprehenders' initial structural analysis. The results from a visual world eye-tracking experiment showed that participants made more anticipatory looks to the upcoming RC head entity when the first noun was implausible as agent in the main clause analysis (MC implausible condition, e.g., 'school kid' to drink beer'), compared to when it was plausible (MC plausible condition, e.g., 'businessman'). Importantly, there were not more anticipatory looks to the RC head entity when the first noun is inanimate and impossible agent (MC impossible condition, e.g., 'sandals') than in the MC implausible condition. The results from pupil size showed that the size of participants' pupil increased significantly after hearing the RC verb in the MC impossible condition compared to the other two conditions, reflecting a great deal of processing difficulty rather than facilitation in this condition. We interpret the results to suggest that the level of thematic fit is not linearly correlated with the amount of activation for an alternative analysis.

    CiNii

  • Priming of branching structure in comprehension

    ARAI Manabu, HIROSE Yuki, NAKAMURA Chie, MIYAMOTO Edson T.

    Technical report of IEICE. Thought and language   112 ( 145 ) 59 - 62  2012.07

    　View Summary

    It is known that previous experience of a particular syntactic structure facilitates subsequent processing of the same structure. We investigated this phenomenon, called syntactic priming, in the comprehension of noun-phrases in Japanese. We report eye-tracking data providing evidence for syntactic priming of the internal branching structure of noun-phrases.

    CiNii

  • Immediate use of contextually meaningful prosodic information in processing of garden-path sentences

    NAKAMURA Chie, ARAI Manabu, MAZUKA Reiko

    IEICE technical report   111 ( 170 ) 53 - 56  2011.07

    　View Summary

    An eye-tracking experiment examined whether prosodic information can be immediately used to predict and analyze a correct sentence structure in processing of structurally ambiguous sentences in Japanese such as Otokonoko-ga sanrinsha-ni notteiru onnanoko-wo mitsumeta ('The boy stared at the girl who was riding on the tricycle'). In our experiment, participants heard such a sentence either with contrastive intonation on the RC-theme (tricycle) or without. At the same time, they saw a visual scene that contained either an object that established contrast to the RC-head noun (e.g., another girl riding on a hobbyhorse) or an object that did not (e.g., a woman riding on a bicycle). The results showed that when a visual scene include contrast, participants made more looks to the correct RC-head object with contrastive intonation than without the intonation. However, when a scene did not include contrast, there was no difference in looks to the RC-head object between a sentence with the intonation and the one without. The results demonstrated that prosodic information can help listeners to analyze a correct syntactic structure before encountering any disambiguating information but this is limited to when the prosodic information is contextually meaningful.

    CiNii

  • An anticipatory effect of syntactic priming in processing of structurally ambiguous sentences

    ARAI Manabu, NAKAMURA Chie, MAZUKA Reiko

    IEICE technical report   111 ( 170 ) 83 - 86  2011.07

    　View Summary

    Several previous studies on language comprehension found that processing difficulty due to structural ambiguity can be reduced by a phenomenon of structural priming (e.g., Traxler & Pickering, 2005). What is still not clear is whether priming only helps comprehenders to recover from an initial misanalysis or it also helps to make a prediction of a correct analysis before encountering disambiguating information. We conducted two eye-tracking visual world experiments to investigate this issue with structurally ambiguous relative clause sentences such as Roujin-ga shinbun-wo yondeiru bijinesuman-ni hanashikaketa ('The old man talked to the businessman who was reading the newspaper'). The results showed that while listening to the structurally ambiguous part of a sentence, participants made a prediction of the same sentence structure as a prime structure. Importantly, the effect was observed both when the verb was repeated between prime and target and when it was not. Our study demonstrated that a past experience to a sentence structure not only influences listeners on the recovery from misanalysis but also on the probabilities of upcoming dispreferred structures.

    CiNii

  • Japanese learners experience less difficulty with English garden-path sentences than native speakers by using subcategorization information of a verb

    NAKAMURA Chie, ARAI Manabu, HARADA Yasunari

    IEICE technical report   110 ( 407 ) 13 - 18  2011.01

    　View Summary

    This study investigates the difference in processing structurally ambiguous (so-called 'garden-path') sentences in English between Japanese learner of English and native English speakers. The sentences tested in the experiment either contained a verb that almost always takes a direct object (transitive verb) or one that does not (intransitive verb). We measured reading time for individual words using self-paced reading task. Past research showed that native English speakers initially analyze a noun phrase that directly follows a verb as its direct object and experience processing difficulty on encountering disambiguating information regardless of the type of the verb. Our results with Japanese learners of English revealed greater processing difficulty at the disambiguating main verb when the subordinate clause had a transitive verb than when it had an intransitive verb. Further more, this tendency increased with the participants who answered more accurately to the comprehension questions, suggesting that Japanese learners of English, especially those who parse the sentences correctly, rely heavily on the grammatical knowledge of individual verbs to guide their initial analysis.

    CiNii

  • Preference between syntactic vs. prosodic cues in comprehension of aurally presented English sentences among Japanese EFL learner

    NAKAMURA Chie, HARADA Yasunari, ISHIZAKI Shun

    IEICE technical report   110 ( 163 ) 13 - 18  2010.07

    　View Summary

    The purpose of this study is to determine what information Japanese EFL learners rely on in processing English sentences and if it varies with their English proficiency. Experiments were performed to determine whether Japanese EFL learners utilize prosodic or morpho-syntactic cues in analyzing English sentences, when the two suggest conflicting syntactic structures. The results of the experiments suggest that prosodic cues seem to be the more important information for Japanese EFL learners at a lower proficiency level, but as the learners' proficiency go up, they tend to rely more on morpho-syntactic cues in processing sentences. Although our experiments were not exhaustive enough to determine the real cause of this, we conjecture that as learners' English proficiency improve, they will be able to obtain semantic and morpho-syntactic information from the aural input, while learners with lower proficiency have to rely mostly on prosodic cues because that is the only kinds of information they can obtain from the aural input for processing sentence structures. This study shows that the strategy of Japanese EFL learners change from dependence on prosodic cues to morpho-syntactic cues in analyzing aurally presented English sentences.

    CiNii

  • How Japanese learners of English pay attention to prosodic cues in aurally presented English sentences

    NAKAMURA Chie, HARADA Yasunari, ISHIZAKI Shun

      2010 ( 10 ) 1 - 8  2010.05

    CiNii

  • How Japanese English-learners pay attention to prosodic cues in English sentences

    NAKAMURA Chie

    IEICE technical report   109 ( 140 ) 45 - 50  2009.07

    　View Summary

    Prosodic cues in speech language convey information of speaker's emotions and intentions. It is also known that prosodic cues produce rhythms characteristic of each language, and reveal an important clue to identify the segment positions both semantically and syntactically in speech. It is considered that in second language acquisition, ability to speculate key parts of conversations and emotional state of speaker, which are expressed by prosodic cues, is very important especially under conditions of limited vocabulary. In this paper, we examine how Japanese-English learners pay attention to prosodic cues in spoken English sentences through two experiments and validate relativity between the results of the experiments and TOEFL score.

    CiNii

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Awards

  • The 9th WASEDA e-Teaching Award Good Practice Award

    2021.03   Waseda University  

  • Presenter Award

    2014.05   Japan Second Language Association   Processing filler-gap dependencies in L2: Evidence for the use of subcategorization information

    Winner： Nakamura, C., Arai, M., Harada, Y., & Hirose, Y.

  • CUNY Conference Student Presenter Award

    2012.03   25th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing   The persistence of the initial misanalysis without pragmatic inference: Evidence from Japanese relative clause structure

  • SFC STUDENT AWARD

    2008.03   Keio University  

Research Projects

  • Anticipatory use of acoustic information in L2 processing: Visual world paradigm studies

    Japan Society for the Promotion of Science  Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Fund for the Promotion of Joint International Research (Fostering Joint International Research (B))

    Project Year :

    2021.10
    -
    2026.03
     

  • Adaptation and prosodic processing in L2: Eye-tracking evidence and processing models

    Japan Society for the Promotion of Science  Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)

    Project Year :

    2019.04
    -
    2023.03
     

  • Simultaneous eye-tracking recording of multiple participants and eye-tracking technology applications in English learning

    Japan Society for the Promotion of Science  Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A)

    Project Year :

    2015.04
    -
    2019.03
     

    Nakamura Chie

    　View Summary

    In a series of visual world eye-tracking experiments, this study examined how L2 learner's knowledge of the target language, such as verb subcategorization information and prosodic information, is referenced during online sentence processing. The results revealed the qualitative difference between native speakers and language learners in building structural representation of a sentence; L2 leaners were sensitive to linguistic information and used the information in constructing structural analysis. However, unlike native speakers who showed anticipatory use of linguistic information in sentence processing, L2 learners did not show anticipatory effects. The results suggest the possibility that L2 leaners do not make strong predictions about upcoming sentence structure.

  • Japanese EFL learners' use of verb subcategorization information in processing filler-gap dependency structures: A study using eye-tracking technique in reading

    Japan Society for the Promotion of Science  Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research

    Project Year :

    2014.04
    -
    2016.03
     

    NAKAMURA Chie, HARADA Yasunari

    　View Summary

    In order to investigate whether verb information is all together ignored in L2 processing (coarse-grain account) or it is simply too weak to override strong general structural preference of analyzing an NP directly following a verb as the verb’s direct object (restricted fine-grain account), this study tested sentences with unbounded dependency structure using eye-tracking technique in reading. The purpose of the study was to examine whether Japanese EFL learners would still ignore the verb’s subcategorization information and adopt a direct object analysis even when an NP does not appear following the verb. The results demonstrated that Japanese EFL learners have and use verb subcategorization as well as thematic information in the processing of filler-gap dependencies, providing support for the restricted fine-grain account in L2 sentence processing.

  • 日本人英語学習者における統語・韻律情報処理メカニズムの統合的解明

    日本学術振興会  科学研究費助成事業 特別研究員奨励費

    Project Year :

    2013.04
    -
    2016.03
     

    中村 智栄

    　View Summary

    日本人英語学習者の英語音声文理解においてプロソディー情報が統語処理に与える影響を明らかにするため、修飾句に置かれた強調と視覚情報の交互作用により、文の統語理解が英語母語話者と日本人英語学習者の間でどう異なるかの検証を行った。具体的には、(1)のような統語上の一時的曖昧性を伴う音声提示文理解において、視覚情報として与えられた文脈の中にリンゴが一つしかない場合と、"the apple on the towel"と対比を形成する「ナプキンの上に置かれたもう一つのリンゴ」がある場合で、修飾句内の名詞の対比的強調(L+H*)がオンラインの統語構造理解にどう影響するかについて、視覚世界パラダイムによる眼球運動計測実験を行った。
    (1)Put the apple on the TOWEL(L+H*) in the box.
    英語母語話者と日本人英語学習者を対象とした実験の結果から、日本人英語学習者の眼球運動パターンでは、修飾句の強調により正しい文構造解釈が喚起されるはずの条件を聞いた際に最も高い確立で誤った文構造分析が行われているということが示された。これにより、英語母語話者の文理解では正しい統語構造を示す手がかりとなる音声のプロソディー情報が、日本人英語学習者による音声文理解では誤った文構造分析に導くキューとして解釈されていることが示され、プロソディー情報の用いられ方が英語母語話者と学習者の間で異なることが明らかとなった。

  • Psycholinguistic Study on Listening Comprehension and Automatization of Syntactic Processing by Japanese EFL Learners

    Japan Society for the Promotion of Science  Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research

    Project Year :

    2012.04
    -
    2015.03
     

    HARADA Yasunari, TOYA Mitsuyo, MORISHITA Miwa, NAKAMURA Chie, NABEI Lisa

    　View Summary

    After listening and dictation tasks described below, students responded to a questionnaire generally positively, suggesting that they started to employ a new listening comprehension strategy where they would try to use grammatical and contextual redundancy to determine word forms of nouns and verbs and to identify articles and prepositions.
    (1) Students listened to audio files played back once and chose proper forms of nouns or verbs. They played back corresponding audio files, with the key segments masked by noises, on their own as many times as they wanted and made similar choices. Finally, they repeated the activity in the first stage.
    (2) A relatively simple and short news article with an audio file was chosen. Students were given a list of words for the article, consisting of the dictionary forms of the nouns and the verbs, with the articles and prepositions removed, and wrote down the text of the news audio file, which they were able to play back as many times as they wanted.

  • 第二言語聴取能力と聴取時におけるプロソディ情報依存度の分布傾向

    日本学術振興会  科学研究費助成事業 特別研究員奨励費

    Project Year :

    2010
    -
    2012
     

    中村 智栄

    　View Summary

    研究課題について、日本語文理解における韻律情報、統語プライミング、語彙の意味情報と節の長さの影響について検討するため、「医師が白衣を持っている高校生をあわてて追いかけた。」のような一時的曖昧性を伴うガーデンパス文の理解過程を、眼球運動計測手法を用いた実験により検証した。
    関係節構造の予測を反映した視線の動きから、日本語ガーデンパス文の統語処理において、上記の3つの言語情報が遅延することなく用いられていることが明らかとなった。これらの結果により、これまで主要部前置型言語を対象とした研究で検証されてきた上記の言語情報が、日本語のような主要部後置型言語でも文理解の漸次的処理に用いられていることを明らかにした。
    続いて、日本語文処理における研究成果を踏まえた上で、日本人英語学習者の英語文理解における文処理方略の特性について学習者が英語文を理解する際に動詞情報をどのように用いるかについて検証を行うため、自己ペースリーディング実験を行った。その結果、日本人英語学習者は英語母語話者とは対照的に自動詞直後の名詞句を動詞の直接目的語として誤って解釈する傾向が確認された。また、文完成課題の結果から、他動詞の使用については学習者と母語話者の間に違いが見られない一方、自動詞の使用についてはグループ間で有意差が見られたことから、英語文理解における学習者と母語話者の違いは、学習者の自動詞に対する下位範疇化情報の獲得が不完全であることに起因する可能性を示した。

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Presentations

  • L2 processing of sub-ject-verb agreement (SVA): They hear it but can't process it?

    Kiwako, I, Nakamura, C, Kylie, S, Traci, F, Thomas, N, Suzanne, F, Jongmin, J, Bethany, F

    Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2021) 

    Presentation date： 2021.09

    Event date：
    2021.09
    　
    　

  • Learning to anticipate with unconventional prosodic mappings: The L2 advantage

    Nakamura, C, Harris, J. A, Jun, S. A

    45th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development 

    Presentation date： 2020.11

  • Learning to anticipate contrast with prosody: A visual world study with L2 learners

    Chie Nakamura, Jesse A. Harris, Sun-Ah Jun

    10th International Conference on Speech Prosody 

    Presentation date： 2020.05

  • Listener's belief influences prosodic adaptation: Anticipatory use of contrastive accent during visual search

    Chie Nakamura, Jesse A. Harris, Sun-Ah Jun

    International Congress of Phonetic Sciences ICPhS 2019 

    Presentation date： 2019.08

  • Prosody-meaning mismatches in PP ambiguity: Incremental processing with pupillometry

    Harris, J. A, Nakamura, C, Bethany Sturman, Jun, S. A

    32nd Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing 

    Presentation date： 2019.03

  • Listeners' belief about the speaker and adaptation to the deviant use of prosody

    Nakamura, C, Harris, J. A, Jun, S. A

    32nd Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing 

    Presentation date： 2019.03

  • Adaptation to speaker-specific prosody during visual search

    Chie Nakamura, Jesse A. Harris, Sun-Ah Jun

    California Meeting on Psycholinguistics 2018 

    Presentation date： 2018.12

  • L2 adaptation to unreliable prosody during structural analysis: A visual world study

    Nakamura, C, Harris, A. J, Jun, S. A, Hirose, Y

    43rd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development 

    Presentation date： 2018.11

  • Predictive processing and reliability in the influence of prosody in L2 structural analysis

    Nakamura, C, Harris, A. J, Jun, S.A, Hirose, Y

    31st Annual CUNY Sentence Processing Conference 

    Presentation date： 2018.03

  • Cue reliability affects anticipatory use of prosody in processing globally ambiguous sentences

    Nakamura, C, Harris, A. J, Jun, S. A

    31st Annual CUNY Sentence Processing Conference 

    Presentation date： 2018.03

  • Anticipatory effects and the reliability of prosody in processing globally ambiguous structures

    Nakamura, C, Harris, A. J, Jun, S.A

    California Meeting on Psycholinguistics 

    Presentation date： 2017.12

  • Predicting native language from gaze

    Berzak, Y. Nakamura, C. Flynn, S, Katz, B

    Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics 

    Presentation date： 2017.07

  • The use of prosody by children, adults, and learners: Similarities and differences

    Nakamura, C  [Invited]

    Japan Society for Language Sciences 19th Annual International Conference 

    Presentation date： 2017.07

  • Priming from a previously predicted but unseen verb

    Arai, M, Nakamura, C, Hirose, Y

    22nd Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing 

    Presentation date： 2016.09

  • Semantic ambiguity makes it difficult for L2 learners to understand English relative clause sentences

    Nakamura, C, Flynn, S

    10th International Conference on Multilingualism and Third Language Acquisition 

    Presentation date： 2016.09

  • It needs to be specific: Contribution of semantic information in L2 learners' processing of English relative clause structures

    Nakamura, C, Flynn, S

    35th Second Language Research Forum 

    Presentation date： 2016.09

  • Language switching costs in picture naming: Evidence from highly proficient Chinese learners of Japanese

    Ying, D, Nakamura, C

    9th International Workshop on Language Production 

    Presentation date： 2016.07

  • Prosody helpes L1 speakers but confuses L2 learners: Influence of L+H* pitch accent on referential ambiguity resolution

    Nakamura, C, Arai, M, Hirose, Y, Flynn, S

    Speech Prosody 2016 

    Presentation date： 2016.06

  • Restricted fine-grained parsing in second language: Influence of lexically specific information in L2 processing

    Nakamura, C, Arai, M, Hirose, Y, Flynn, S

    International Symposium on Bilingual and L2 Processing in Adults and Children 

    Presentation date： 2016.04

  • Verb repetition boosts priming of voice but not word order: Evidence from transitive sentence production in Japanese.

    Deng, Y, Nakamura, C

    21st Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing 

    Presentation date： 2015.09

  • Grain problem in L2 sentence processing: Evidence for L2 learner's use of lexically specific information

    Nakamura, C, Arai, M, Hirose, Y, Harada, Y

    21st Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing 

    Presentation date： 2015.09

  • Prosody can mislead L2 learners down "A Garden Path": Evidence from a visual-world eye-tracking study

    Nakamura, C, Arai, M, Hirose, Y, Flynn, S

    40th Boston University Conference on Language Development 

    Presentation date： 2015.05

  • What is helpful for native speakers can be misleading for L2 learners: Evidence for misinterpretation of contrastive prosody

    Nakamura, C, Arai, M, Hirose, Y

    28th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing 

    Presentation date： 2015.03

  • Getting ready for a surprise

    Arai, M, Hirose, Y, Nakamura, C

    20th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing 

    Presentation date： 2014.09

  • Thematic fit does not always help ambiguity resolution

    Arai, M, Nakamura, C, Hirose, Y

    20th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing 

    Presentation date： 2014.09

  • Processing filler-gap dependencies in L2: Evidence for the use of subcategorization information

    Nakamura, C, Arai, M, Harada, Y, Hirose, Y

    14th Annual Conference of the Japan Second Language Association 

    Presentation date： 2014.05

  • Processing filler-gap dependencies in L2: Evidence for the use of subcategorization information

    Nakamura, C, Arai, M, Harada, Y, Hirose, Y

    27th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing 

    Presentation date： 2014.03

  • The influence of structural ambiguity on an antilocality effect in Japanese

    Arai, M, Miyamoto, E. T, Hirose, Y, Nakamura, C

    19th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing 

    Presentation date： 2013.09

  • Priming of an initially adopted structure in L2 processing

    Nakamura, C, Arai, M, Harada, Y

    19th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing 

    Presentation date： 2013.09

  • Syntactic priming of the initial analysis in L2 comprehension: Evidence from a self-paced reading study with Japanese EFL learners

    Nakamura, C, Arai, M, Harada, Y

    15th Annual International Conference of the Japanese Society for Language Sciences 

    Presentation date： 2013.06

  • Surprising Surprisal: No free lunch during sentence comprehension

    Arai, M, Miyamoto, E. T, Nakamura, C, Hirose, Y

    14th Tokyo Conference on Psycholinguistics 

    Presentation date： 2013.03

  • Priming the internal structure of noun-phrases in comprehension

    Arai, M, Hirose, Y, Nakamura, C, Miyamoto, E. T

    18th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing 

    Presentation date： 2012.09

  • What makes readers to commit to (incorrect) pre-head attachment in Japanese?

    Nakamura, C, Arai, M

    18th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing 

    Presentation date： 2012.09

  • Preservation of the initial analysis in absence of pragmatic inference with Japanese relative clause sentences

    Nakamura, C, Arai, M

    34th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society 

    Presentation date： 2012.08

  • Effects of visual and discourse contexts and prosody on referential resolution

    Ito, K, Nakamura, C, Mazuka, R

    25th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing 

    Presentation date： 2012.03

  • The persistence of the initial misanalysis without pragmatic inference: Evidence from Japanese relative clause structure

    Nakamura, C, Arai, M

    25th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing 

    Presentation date： 2012.03

  • Interaction between context-driven salience and prosody during referential resolution

    Ito, K, Nakamura, C, Mazuka, R

    Experimental and Theoretical Advances in Prosody 2 

    Presentation date： 2011.09

  • Predicting a dispreferred structural alternative as a result of syntactic priming in comprehension

    Arai, M, Nakamura, C, Mazuka, R

    17th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing 

    Presentation date： 2011.09

  • Prediction of the correct structural analysis driven by contextually appropriate prosodic information

    Nakamura, C, Arai, M, Mazuka, R

    17th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing 

    Presentation date： 2011.09

  • An anticipatory effect of syntactic priming in processing garden-path sentences

    Arai, M, Nakamura, C, Mazuka, R

    24th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing 

    Presentation date： 2011.03

  • Listeners can use prosodic cues to avoid being garden-pathed

    Nakamura, C, Arai, M, Mazuka, R

    24th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing 

    Presentation date： 2011.03

  • How Japanese-English learners pay attention to prosodic cues to spoken English sentences

    Nakamura, C, Harada, Y, Ishizaki, S

    ELSJ international spring forum 2010 

    Presentation date： 2010.04

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Specific Research

  • 心理言語学実験のためのウェブ上眼球運動計測システムの開発

    2021  

    　View Summary

    ウェブカメラを用いた眼球運動測定の言語研究の応用を目指すにあたり, 既存のアイトラッキングオープンソースソフトウェアをウェブアプリケーションに取り込むことで眼球運動データの収集を遠隔から行える実験システムの開発を行った.&nbsp;開発した実験システムが全てのモダンなブラウザ上で安定して動作すること,&nbsp;遅延なく処理が実行され他のスクリプトの動作をブロックしないことが確認できた.

  • 数理モデルによるアイトラッキング実験データのシミュレーション

    2020   Jesse Harris, Sun-Ah Jun, Suzanne Flynn, 広瀬友紀, 新井学

    　View Summary

    本研究では, 言語使用の経験により蓄積している確率的情報（語の使用頻度や予測可能性）が言語の統語構造理解にどう関わっているのかに焦点を当て, 言語情報の統計的予測能力と文理解の関連性を明らかにするためのアイトラッキング 実験を行った. 近年の言語研究では, 成人の言語表象がこれまで考えられてきたほど固定的なものではなく, 状況によって柔軟に変化するものであることが指摘されている. 第二言語学習者を対象にしたアイトラッキング実験の結果から, 第二言語学習者の文理解プロセスの研究は, 学習者の言語知識が未完成な段階で, 語用経験がどの様に第二言語の統計的情報を更新させ, それが言語処理にどう反映されるかを示した. その中で, 日本語のような主要部後置型言語と英語を代表とする主要部前置型言語の文処理を比較し, 言語情報が文構造の予測に用いられる普遍性を議論した. 母語理解と第二言語理解の文理解プロセスからは, 知識体系が未習得・不完全な言語習得過程で, 言語情報が文処理にどう影響するかを明らかにした.&nbsp;これらは, 国際会議での発表と国際ジャーナルへの掲載という研究成果につながった.

  • 数理モデルを用いた第二言語処理におけるプロソディー情報理解の検証

    2020   Jesse Harris, Sun-Ah Jun, Suzanne Flynn, 広瀬友紀, 新井学

    　View Summary

    第二言語学習者の文理解プロセスをテーマに扱った本研究では, 学習者の言語知識が未完成な段階で, 語用経験がどの様に第二言語の統計的情報を更新させ, それが言語処理にどう反映されるかを示した. その中で, 日本語のような主要部後置型言語と英語を代表とする主要部前置型言語の文処理を比較し, 言語情報が文構造の予測に用いられる普遍性を議論した. 母語理解と第二言語理解の文理解プロセスからは, 知識体系が未習得・不完全な言語習得過程で, 言語情報が文処理にどう影響するかを明らかにした. これらの研究成果に基づき, その後の研究では言語処理機能が個人差や言語が使用される環境といった言語情報のバリエーションにどう対応し文理解が行われているかを説明する数理モデルの構築を目指した. 特に, 適応的な言語理解のメカニズムを説明するモデルの一つとして, 予測した情報と実際のインプットの差によって生じるエラーに基づいた潜在的学習(implicit error-based learning)に注目した. このモデルによれば, 予測したアウトプットと実際のインプットが異なる場合, その差異により脳内に保持される統計情報に変更が加えられ, 語用状況に順応した言語理解が可能になる(Chang et al., 2006). 従来の母語理解を対象とした研究では, 一定レベルまで獲得された言語情報の統計的知識が新たな経験によって更新されることで適応的な言語処理をすることが示されていたが, 本研究では第二言語学習者を対象とした実験から, 言語知識の発達過程での情報更新という, より広い意味での学習機能としての適応的言語処理の検証を可能とする土台となった. これらは, 国際会議での発表と国際ジャーナルへの掲載という研究成果につながった.

  • 第二言語理解におけるプロソディー情報の適応的処理

    2019   Jesse Harris, Sun-Ah Jun

    　View Summary

    学習者が言語情報に対して持つ統計的推論能力と予測的文処理プロセスに焦点を当て, 第二言語の理解において音声情報に含まれる多様性を聞き手がどう考慮し, 情報の信頼性にどう適応しながら文理解を行うかの検証を行った. アイトラッキング実験とデータ分析から, 言語使用者は言語情報に対して持つ統計的な情報を常に更新することでその場に応じた適応的(adaptive)な言語理解を行うという処理方略が, 学習者が英語音声文を理解する際の音声のプロソディー情報の使い方にも影響することを実証した.&nbsp;

 

Syllabus

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